Sam Nujoma, the fiery freedom fighter who led Namibia to independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 and served as its president for 15 years, has died. He was 95.

The first president of independent Namibia, Sam Nujoma, has died at the age of 95 in the capital Windhoek, the country's current leader has announced. Nujoma led the long fight for independence from South Africa in 1990 after helping found Namibia's liberation movement known as the South West Peoples' Organisation (Swapo) in the 1960s.

Sam Nujoma, the activist and guerrilla leader who became Namibia's first democratically elected president after it won its independence from apartheid South Africa, died aged 95 on Saturday, the Namibian Presidency said on Sunday.

Nujoma, with his trademark white beard, was the last of a generation of African leaders who brought their countries out of colonial or white minority rule that included South Africa's Nelson Mandela,

Nujoma had been hospitalised over the past three weeks, battling an illness from which he "could not recover", President Nangolo Mbumba said in a statement released Sunday.

Like many African leaders of his era, he was shaped by the struggle for resistance against colonial oppression. This was no romantic picnic.